In high school I was best in music class on the trumpet, but the prizes went to the boys with blue eyes. I made up my mind to outdo anybody white on my horn.
I’m out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I’m still playing.
Coltrane, you cant play everything at once!
We’re not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got ’em, so they can keep ’em.
You have to be born with it. You can’t even buy it. If you could buy it, they’d have it at the next Newport Festival.
In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That’s a little bit too much.
Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.
When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.
As long as I’ve been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
I was minding my own business when something says to me, “you ought to blow trumpet.” I have just been trying ever since.
Music is an addiction.
Keith, how does it feel to be a genius?
Music is a funny thing when you really come to think about it.
You can’t play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn’t played.
It’s always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don’t know where it comes from, it’s just there and I don’t question it.
A legend is an old man with a cane...
Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.
He sounded to me like he’s supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
I really liked Wynton when I first met him. He’s still a nice young man, only confused.
If you got up on the bandstand at Minton’s and couldn’t play, you were not only going to be embarrassed by the people ignoring you or booing you, you might get your ass kicked.
I’ve always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that’s where great art and music happens.